The following is a brief career and record of Kang Mi Son, once a violinist.

Entrance at Kumsong Senior Middle School in 1984 without any examination;

Admission to the then Pyongyang University of Music and Dance in 1986;

Violinist at the then Film and Radio Music Troupe and Mansudae Art Troupe, etc between 1994 and 2009;

Teacher at Pyongyang Kim Won Gyun University of Music and Dance since 2010…

Winner of the individual event at a national art contest of students in her days at Kumsong Senior Middle School;

Winner at an international radio violin contest of youth and students held in Prague in 1988;

Winner of the individual event at the February 16 art prize contest several times.

“When I was young, I wanted to learn engineering following in my father’s footsteps. In those days I played the violin for fun. But I’d never dreamt the violin would take up my whole life,” said Mi Son.

This can be understood, given that her younger brother is Prof, PhD Kang Jin U, head of a department of physics faculty of Kim Il Sung University, who is recognized as a renowned physicist at home and abroad.

In the late 1980s a teacher from Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory gave a lecture in the DPRK. The teacher spoke highly of Mi Son, saying that she played free play to her musical representation with unique, powerful and distinctive character.

Some said that her rendition is dramatic just like a warrior wielding a sword and gives them an impression as if they were looking up at the blue autumn sky.

As a soloist and performer she played an active role in violin performance. For example she contributed to highlighting the ideological and artistic value of the multi-part feature film "The Nation and Destiny" (workers) of national significance, by representing its theme song admirably.

Then she cherished a view that artistes must be conscientious and endlessly honest when it comes to artistic creation and that they must try their best to make an impressive artistic representation even though they do perform just in front of a single person.

She recalls that she has never felt more delightful, excited and thrilled than when she represents a musical piece to her satisfaction on the stage.

Now she is a teacher who brings up reserve violinists. She says that she feels the happiest when she sees her students performing a violin solo at major performances of national significance.

She has worked heart and soul to train young violinists with the passion, spirit and way she showed and applied in her days as a violinist.

She has applied new teaching methods for the students to easily understand the bouncing and grouping techniques, which are widely applied in violin rendition; she compared the physical principles such as the law of elasticity and inertia and the law of reaction with the principles of rendition through her own demonstration. Also, she updated the rendition techniques in line with the world trend of the developing violin performance and put them into rendition and education. In the course of this she has trained many talented violinists.

She made a tangible contribution to education. She wrote more than 20 musical pieces for education and essays as well as books “Principles of application of violin rendition techniques” and “Principles and ways of the practice of basic techniques of violin performance.”

She lives in Moranbong District, Pyongyang. She has been playing the violin at 5:30 every morning for scores of years. Her neighbours say they were attached to her fiddling.

It is part of her routine practice in the whole course of her life as a beginner, violinist and educator to make regular practice on the basic violin rendition.

Her two sons complain that their mother loves the violin more than them. But their grumble could not hold back the passionate mother.

In July she received a doctorate in a conferring meeting of state academic degrees and titles. “Kang Mi Son is the only person who has received the doctorate of violin performance in the country. She is an all-round educator equipped with the rendition skills, musical theory and teaching ability,” said the participants in the event. This is the highest praise of her.

Having set a goal of training a top violinist in the country, she devotes herself to attaining the aim.

Yang Ryon Hui